'Cougar Town'-'Community' lovefest will continue this season

It's not often that you hear a TV show character tout a show on a different network. It's happened several times this season on ABC's
"Cougar Town" and NBC's
"Community," though, and at least one more expression of cross-network love is coming.

"Cougar Town" co-creator
Bill Lawrence tells
Zap2it that his show's season finale contains a "solid 'Community' shout-out," presumably coming from Travis (
Dan Byrd), who has expressed his love for the series in the past.

"We've kind of been cross-promoting each other since the beginning of the year. They have Abed [
Danny Pudi] liking 'Cougar Town,' and we have Travis loving 'Community,'" Lawrence says. "I don't know if anyone's done that sort of cross-promotion between two shows on different networks before." (Lawrence's previous series,
"Scrubs," name-checked several of its contemporaries, from
"House" to
"Gilmore Girls," but it was more of a one-way love affair.)

Lawrence is genuinely a fan of "Community" -- "I loved it," he says of that show's most recent "Cougar Town" mention in the episode "Critical Film Studies." He also knew it was coming, thanks to some former colleagues.

"People -- even executives, not just fans -- will go, 'Can you believe what they said on "Community"? Were you so shocked?'" he says. "Nobody's bothered to check that two of the executive producers on 'Community'" --
Neil Goldman and
Garrett Donovan -- "were 'Scrubs' executive producers. We all know what each other is going to do weeks before we do it. ...

"It's part of the fun for us. I think we just keep it quiet because we all fear getting in trouble at the end."

"Community" returns to ABC at 9:30 p.m. ET Monday (April 18) before heading back to its regular home at 9:30 Wednesday; "Community" airs at 8 p.m. Thursdays on NBC.